That entire topic is doublespeak, and I’ll reply here the same way I replied there:

SP is good precisely because it denies you a win condition. The idea that your opponent just locks you out of your entire deck is simply mathematically false, since Metris needs to burn 1 stolen plans to deny you 1 card, and possibly more, if they want to steal something expensive. It’s just that Stolen Plans feels like a gut punch when your deck isn’t full of win conditions because a Metris can just snag your 1 wincon and laugh at you.

If you’re dependent on that “1 card that you need”, then you’re going to lose. The way to “play around” stolen plans is to use “lots and lots of little ones” to win as opposed to one big TARGETTHISWINCON card.

To get a 0 gold effect out of a card that costs that much is unacceptable. Similarly, it’s ridiculous that it can just do something like “opponent loans into miracle, gets warship, redraws miracle, gets a knight, redraws miracle, gets a stratagem, redraws miracle after taking his second turn, etc.”

You don’t see how the time it takes is relevant? Of course you do. You even said that when one runs into the Mog baby/boar cannon, you know your streak is over (not necessarily with Sofo bounty, or certain Endazu decks with a good draw with walled scribes/WoU). And here’s how it’s relevant: it’s not fun to play against. It isn’t like you’re getting outplayed, so much as “lawlz I have 10 serpent’s coins with 2 stones and 2 dais among other things out, and you get rolled!”

As for “ingots solves problems of not being able to get cards”, well, yeah, you can upgrade rares. But you can NEVER spend ingots for epic coins. And even if you did, Serpent’s Seal is basically tailor-built for Mogesh. It’s utterly worthless everywhere outside of a few Daramek idols and Mog’s ability. But with it? Hoo boy, he goes from irrelevant to “oh look I instant win because I played a few cheap cards and have 10 epic coins”.

Epic coins are supposed to give a marginal advantage. Oh hey, I proc’d a ferryman’s coin. I got one skull to kill your banker once. Cool. But that isn’t how Mogesh works. Instead, it’s “oh hey, I proc’d a serpent’s seal. I get to do 5 different things at once!”

The three magic coins (maybe the new berserker coin as well) are the ones that really cause problems, because the difference between no skulls and 1 skull? Tiny. The difference between 1 apple and no apples? Tiny.

The difference between no magic and 1 magic? Activating a 20-charge Urn. Feeding Mogesh to set off a game-winning chain reaction. Etc. Same deal with serpent’s seal. Fecund charm is also absurd in that regard. Gretta with bodyguard and lackey? Manageable for the moment. Gretta with the same two units out but a summoned flower? Better be a daramek with bloodlust or double seduce metris, or you’re in big trouble.

Considering how huge of an effect the magic coins have, they need to be nerf-smashed to the point that they have as little relevance as all the other non-diviner coins.

Damn, homie, you know how much hard work and resources it takes to really make that deck O.P.? So much time and so many resources. Having a great deck that is hard to beat is what is supposed to happen when you put that much time into it. If that’s the deck you need to beat, craft a deck to counter it, like you would do in any ccg. A fast Metris burn deck is a perfectly good example of a deck that is evenly matched with the Mogesh deck.

The time it takes to assemble it is also irrelevant. Even a deck that’s full of rares should be balanced to the point that there can be strategies that cost a fraction that can compete with it. Otherwise, that’s the epitome of P2W, and the best way to play those games is to find a different game.

Every hero having a consistent ability is not necessarily true. Doge can be denied resources and not be able to play bank. Lucca can go up against a Poultice spamming opponent and not be able to lock them down until it’s FAR too late. And if you see your opponent has a mayhem, then keep the Poultice in the hand and don’t burn all your resources. You’ll get at least two goats next turn.

As for epic coins, no, they aren’t win more cards. A Gretta with a bodyguard and a lackey out? Lulz. A Gretta with bodyguard, lackey, and who proc’d a fecund or two? You’re in deep trouble. Most coins are just nuisances. The proper epic coins, however, are win conditions in and of themselves. Those coins are the ones that should be nerf smashed to the point that they can’t be counted on to actually deliver consistently, so they become “nice to have” as opposed to “assume you get a few coin procs”, because with Mogesh, Gretta, and possibly others, they’re a huge difference.

As for Mogesh…Mogesh with no epic coins? LOL, get #rekt. Mogesh with 10 appropriate epic coins? 2 stones, 2 dais, infinite before you can even play anything sound fun? Yes, it takes a crapton of work to actually get 10 epic coins of some combination of wishing and serpent. That shouldn’t be a balancing factor, however. It’s like saying “okay, pay us $500 or stick around forever and ever and sure, we’ll hand you every player on a silver platter.”

That’s the exact opposite of balance.

Veil Warden: cheaper, redrawable, rechargeable frame. If it costs 5, Frame should cost 2, and misdirect should be free. That’s how obscene it is.

And regarding Miracle, it removes agency from the game to a massive degree. Sure, it may be a 50/50 card, but essentially, it creates some very negative experiences. EG “WTF? I JUSTPAID 12 GOLDANDYOUGIVE ME A HERD OF RATS?” vs. “Oh look, he double loan’d Miracle, got Warship, redrew Miracle, got Tribute, redrew Miracle, got Knight…” The way to drain fun out of the game fastest is to remove agency from the player. Miracle is the biggest culprit in this regard.

Seriously, even if it were “feed Mogesh 3 magic, etc.”, the entire point is that the ability is absolutely horrible from a PvP perspective, simply because, in the words of Riot, there is very little counterplay to it. Essentially, a Mogesh’s chances of winning are basically dependent on how fast he can solitaire you, since there are very few cards capable of even interacting with the masses of idols he plays (word of unmaking and banishing gust being the only two).

Those that have played against a Mogesh with dedicated coin sets know what I’m talking about. Either you nuke him down to zero before he gets a few easily-assembled pieces in play and gets a lucky coin proc, or he’ll go off far easier than a Vespitole that has to buy god knows how many spells.

The problems are several at the end of the day:

1) I think (I hope) that the idols were balanced around the fact that sacrificing an ally took a ritual that only restocked/redrew so quickly. Having that ability basically trigger “at will” completely ruins that.

2) It’s basically impossible to interact with idols. Allies can be killed. Metris can do all sorts of nasty things to cards inside an inventory (although once in your hand, it’s about as safe as can be, because impersonate is trash). But idols? Nope. Maybe this is by design, but in a PvP, I’m of the opinion that a game should be designed for interactivity as opposed to “I solitaire you, and you can’t stop me because the only cards in the game that can stop me are Endazu, and even they’ll have problems”.

IMO change his ability to this:

Whenever you sacrifice an ally, attack for 2 damage.

Essentially, a mini-carnage, but at least it’ll make him depend on cards to do the sacrificing like the rest of the game is.

I don’t like the change to Daramek rituals, as it would make getting one from miracle useless.

That would be a [b]WELCOME[/b] change. Miracle is one of the stupidest cards ever designed. No, it won’t win every game, but there are some games that it just wins for you, and others that it just laughs at you. Basically the biggest way of the devs saying “the better player winning? Lawlz!”

Zalasair: remove the +5 starting life. Would it be fun to have a Listrata start at 5 food, a Pocchi at 5 gold, or a Sofo at 5 skulls? Life is now a resource. Treat it as one.

Veil Warden: 5 health healable CHEAPER goat outrider that basically completely undoes all the meaning behind the Goetia nerfs? So rather than Goetia being extremely cheap and able to kill you before you can even deal with them, now Bishmog and Ibshuk are just no longer relevant, while all you need to do to support your HP/your Zamzigar is drop this guy? And why exactly does Endazu need yet another interceptor? Are golem, halting rebuke, and warding circle not enough? This card is pure power creep in the context of the aforementioned three cards. Hammer it to the point that people actually have to weigh the pros and cons of the other interceptors.

Magic epic coins: okay, let’s face it—most epic coins just do exactly as they say on the tin. % chance to give you an additional skull. Okay, so what can that do beyond give you 1 more point of attack damage 20% of the time? It can give an assassin an occasional pump, or give Sofocatro 1 additional skull for his corruption. Obol? Same deal with Listrata. Can give that inquisitor 1 more attack on occasion, and pump merchant guild. Diviner draws you cards, the “reduce opponent’s resources” cards do just that, and so on.

But the three magic coins?

Wishing: you’re blowing up all your Endazu opponent’s on-the-field magic generation. Flowers, conjured argoreths, whatever. It fills up his urn (or two). If he didn’t have epic coins? Everything’s fine. But if he has wishings? Oops, you lose. And of course, need I mention that Mogesh is just built on a foundation of 10 of these, essentially taking for granted that he can have a deck that otherwise isn’t even getting off the ground, but whoops, suddenly a few wishing procs, and suddenly he’s going off, and making Ysadora look like a complete amateur.

Fecund: “oops, Gretta proc’d a fecund behind a bodyguard. You lose.”

Serpent’s seal: oh hey, a coin specifically built for Daramek. The design team should just be ashamed of themselves for this one. It’s completely worthless unless you build a deck around it, at which point, it becomes easily the most powerful coin aside from the aforementioned two.

Anyone that has a contention with these three, well, ever seen anyone in chat ask “what coin? Something, something else, and wishing”, and the answer is ALWAYS wishing.

Simply, can the power level of the coins be adjusted so that they’re all about equal in power level? At the moment, wishing coins are easily the best in the game, and Fecunds in certain decks are basically strictly better than the opponent loses resources coins.

Proposed changes for these three:

Simple: slice all their chances in half. 9% wishing, 12% serpent’s, 6% (yes, 6%) Fecund. Epic coins should be a bonus to a deck—they shouldn’t make it the way the magic generators do for the respective decks they’re found in.

Miracle: okay this thing is just poor design. There’s no way of creating this card correctly IMO. Because it is more than likely to create negative experience for one or both players.

Here are a couple of scenarios: you loan into miracle, really stretch to afford it, and it gives you a militia or a baby and then you don’t see it for another 4 turns at which point it gives you some other random trash like a misdirect, and you sit there thinking “I broke the bank for THIS?”

Scenario two: your opponent rushes into miracle and gets a knight, redraws it and gets a warship, redraws it and gets another bomb, and so on.

While summoning rift at least gives both the player and the opponent that “hey, if you let this thing get charged up, chances increase that it’s going to rip a bomb”, and it also leaves the person playing it with some agency. Do I rip it now and risk not getting something good, or do I wait? And after being presented with options, it’s still up to said player to actually make a choice which can still be incorrect in hindsight. In contrast, Miracle just does whatever it will do, and considering that most of the time it’ll give you a Vespitole card that’ll just draw another, it’s almost always the right move to play miracle, and immediately play the card it gives you. No agency for either side of the table. Buy miracle, and pray to RNGesus that the game swings in your favor—which, in all likelihood, it will. I mean come on, it’s an 11 gold card, you at least have the right to expect good things from it.

My proposal: gear it towards the better cards (EG militia, mercenary, and soldier shouldn’t even be on its list, since Knight is strictly better. Also, it should never ever provide you with the vesp 1 resource cards (intrigue, spice route, taxes, prayer), since Vesp has the +2 resource cards, or if 2 allies on the field, the “per ally” cycle), but destroy the actual miracle afterwards. That is, rather than give you a holy wrath, for instance, miracle becomes holy wrath. Maybe knock its cost down a few to reflect this. Simply put, at the moment, it removes agency from both players.

Draft-oriented:

Daramek sacrifice rituals:

Rather than “redraw X allies”, instead have it read “redraw X DARAMEK allies”. Unless there are plans for having Daramek receive cards from other factions, this change does nothing for constructed, and makes Aline slightly less obscene in draft.

Goat Poultice: remove the “draw herd of goats” from it. Active all the goats? Sure. Restock a goat? Par for the course. Redraw a goat? This is what makes it so unfun in draft. If someone has a dedicated goat-spamming deck in constructed, they can run one more Daramek rite to fetch their goats (feast, repopulate, cull the herd, rat catcher, the possibilities are all there). This should put it more in line with the other herd restockers in draft.

Madam Obscene (Aline): knock her back to 75% please. I mean let’s put things into perspective: Xalia compared to Sofocatro: has a bonus of ignoring intercepts. Whoopty freaking doo. Now let’s look at Aline:

1 gold overseer (Lackey) that restocks another ally? Sure thing!
Guaranteed 4 magic from flower? Sure, why not!
Paying only an extra 2 gold for a seduce with 50% chance to return to your inventory if killed, and basically winning the game right then and there if protected? Yep.
A 3 gold discount on Benediction? A 2-gold discount on Tribute?

Yes, Aline can fail. Yes, it’s possible to get some nuts drafts with other heroes. But to me, it seems that Aline can make a lot of stuff work a lot more easily than other draft heroes, and a lot more brainlessly. At 75% chance to activate on play, a player would at least give pause and say “on the small chance this fails, I’m in serious trouble, let me wait a turn”, but with 100%, sure, let’s throw out that wench, what can go wrong?

Scrivener (4/5)
Ceremonial Dance (7/8…would be 6/7 if I could get the second upgrade)
Cull the herd
Rat Catcher
Scavengers
Rite of Brood
Feast
Starving Mob

Get that first Dance into play, dance a scrivener, fetch them back with rat catchers, then when your economy can sustain it, dance a rite of brood or two, build up a ton of resources, play a bunch of rites with a couple of scriveners in play, and one-shot the opponent.

Probably far more dependent on epic coins early game to deal with early threats.

With Metris, with both Birondelle and Valdorian, subterfuge, deceit, seduce, mayhem, and probably stolen plans are all staples. Seduce is a good candidate for doubling up on, as is stolen plans if you have it doubly upgraded (level 28 Birondelle). Stratagem can also be terrific. Lackey a definite on Valdorian, a maybe on Biro depending on your tastes. Other cards include ransack, burglary, and possibly hard-casting arsenics.

The best players (Clarai, dCrawl, Halflife, etc.) regularly play multiplayer. If you press that multiplayer button, chances are, given the small size of the player base (currently) that you might run into one of them. Heck, as with all F2P games, anyone that sticks with the game beyond the “ooh Kong badges” phase will quickly be in the top 10% or whatnot of all players, just by virtue of not quitting almost instantly. Once there, things get steep quickly.

To me, competitive doesn’t mean “being the top dog”, but it does mean “playing the same game as the top dog”. To give an analogy of a fighting game, it’d be like the new players playing with a certain set of characters, but the “real game” being to use a certain mechanic that requires hundreds of hours of mastery. For instance, SHFFLing and wavedashing in super smash brothers melee (short-hop, fast-fall-lag canceling), aka the mechanic that allowed characters to bring their air game to the ground, and the mechanic that allowed characters to use techniques while moving that they should only have been allowed to use while standing still. It creates a completely different game, simply by virtue of spending time grinding. Most games “survive” because casual players don’t care to be competitive and are happy just paying money to have a casual blast with their friends. But for those trying to be competitive, most games indeed make it quite clear that the vast majority of their player base, indeed, is not competitive with the best, or is even playing the same game, so to speak.

WoO is also very much part of that same vein by virtue of epic coins, and the second upgrade of hero cards, scarces, and rares.

In essence, Shepherd is basically the same as being 4-health unit that intercepts 2 attacks and heals 2 per turn. Even worse in fact, since damage sticks on him. I believe that’s the only card in the game that actually cancels attacks at the moment.

I strongly believe nerfing coins or upgrades would make the problem worse in the long run.

Well, upgrades can’t be nerfed. That genie’s out of the lamp. I mean I suppose the costs of some cards can be raised, but it doesn’t change the fact that upgrading rares is an epic pain in the ass, while upgrading scarces will take a long-ass time for someone without gold packs unlocked. Level 28 is also quite a slog from level 8.

However, coins CAN be nerfed, and IMO, should. Not every one of them. However, the magic generating coins (all three of them) are various forms of “oh hey, I got a few of them to proc? I win.”

For instance, Gretta with Fecunds. Proc a Fecund, drop a bodyguard. Oh hey, you didn’t do anything besides get lucky to suddenly get an additional 1 magic per turn for god knows how long. There was no outplay there, there was just “oh hey, RNGesus just said I won”.

And the magic coins are obvious in the context of Daramek. As someone that’s tried to play a “top tier” Mogesh deck (you know, sac dais, herding stones, etc.) without all the upgrades, and only two wishings (and a fecund) as the relevant epic coins, well, it’s day and night compared to the nonsense that happens when Mogesh gets a full set of wishing/serpent.

The issue is that upgrades should make maybe a marginal difference. Is there a difference between that 1 or 2 gold clever planning? Yeah. Is it ENORMOUS? Well, it shouldn’t be in theory, but in practice, when you only get 3 draws per turn (by default), having a card cost 1 extra gold means 33% of your resources go out the window for…no reason whatsoever. And even at the high end, such as with corruption or miracle, it makes a pretty large difference when you have a loan in play and are off by 1 gold.

At the moment, essentially, there are a ton of factors besides “did I outplay my opponent” that make a difference as to who wins or loses. Oh hey, your opponent has a full set of magic coins and you don’t? Whoops, you’re already in the hole. Double upgrades on his scarces/rares to your singles? You’re in trouble. None of those are “oh hey, I made a mistake in my play”. And heck, even by the time you get to the playing, you can have an Endazu that gets a complete bomb off of a 1 charge rift, or the more common example, a vesp just winning the game because he loaned into Miracle and it just wins the game for him.

One of the reasons I quit Alteil is that at high level play, it was still very much a crapshoot as to the better player winning, because you had the issue of your deck just not containing an answer for your opponent’s deck, and given that there was no random draw, that problem was very much exacerbated. While we do have luck of the draw in WoO such that “nuts draws” don’t just happen at the drop of a hat, we still have the fact that before someone can actually play the game their opponents are playing, they have to spend a good several hundred hours just unlocking the means to do so.

And yes, I realize, 5CG has to actually make money from somewhere, and I happen to think that the “one-time payment unlock” is actually a very cool idea as to how to do that. However, it still doesn’t solve the issue that even with gold packs unlocked, it’ll still take a LONG time before someone has a full set of wishing coins.

Way too much nerfed (and I was personnaly in favour of a nerf).
In the mean time, Miracle still costs only a ridiculous 12 gold and Corruption/Merchant Guild/Holy Wrath are still broken.

Errr, how are they broken? Metris can steal them, every faction has resource denial. There are ways of dealing with those things. That said, it is frustrating to lose to miracle cycles, but c’est la vie.

I think you forget the fact that this is a collectible card game. It’s not a game you are supposed to finish in a week or even a month.
You can compete after far less time spent. Especially since with collectible card games, the progress slows down as the time goes by. That means that your first rare is far easier to get fully upgraded than your last rare, since you won’t get into a situation where you get a rare but don’t upgrade anything…since all three choices are already maxed. This is probably what takes quite a great deal of time, since you need to repeat that for all rarities. Obviously, it’ll be easy for commons. Slightly less so for uncommons, though. Scarces…don’t really matter I guess…seeing as you will max them before rares at no additional “cost”, as in…you’re already going to buy the best available to you pack all the same.

The fact that you have a feasible amount of time to max your cards in front of you is actually rare. As I said, many (maybe even most) collectible card games require the free player to spend decades of full-time game-time to max everything accessible. Yes, that means that many people would die before having a chance. Four years of 2-3h a day (less, actually, thanks to the random days where you can get more outta that play time and the fact that ingots from battling were not added to these calculations) isn’t that bad for maxing.

Think about it this way. Whether physical or digital, you need to “work for your cards”. You need to pay for the physical ones with money which can end up few thousands each set…or more. In Magic the Gathering you need four cards of each to have the full options and if you’re going for the older sets, a single card can cost upwards of 100$.

Sure, you can buy plenty of the new commons, uncommons and mediocre rares for cheap…but how is that different from here?!

Just for a comparison, there are players in other games that spend few hundreds dolars a month and are just “average” buyers. You can get enough silver to get all cards fully upgraded (on average) for 2260$. You could probably spend less if you’d just upgrade up to scarces with gold packs leaving finishing up the rares for gem packs.

Now, this is talking about buyers. But how about free players?! Well…the packs are very easy to get. They take one game on average to buy (for oaks). This guarantees somewhat steady increase in the options available.
And remember, you do NOT need to max all cards. Just all the ones you want to use and few more to swap for when something new will come out to deal with it. It doesn’t matter how many Daramek cards you upgrade if you only play Endazu, for example. You do not get directly stronger…or stronger at all…for doing that.

Since the increase is steady and the goals are clear, the game can have quite a long life. If it does…then you will get to the point you have maxed the cards with minimized risk of getting bored mid-way. Unless you just get bored of the mechanics themselves, of course, which can happen. In other words…it’s not as bad a deal as it seems at first glance.

And all of that is a bunch of meaningless tripe because so many of the daily quests say “win X multiplayer games with Y faction”, and don’t even get me started on “win X multiplayer games in a row with Y faction” quests. Saying you only need one faction is some rather strong BS.

2x repopulate (rare), 2x sacred tortoise (scarce), 2x boar unguent (rare), 2x sacrificial lamb (hero), boar fetish (rare, most likely feasible with one upgrade), and feast (scarce). And the kicker? Even if you were to get the cards upgraded, you still most likely want a set of wishing, diviner, or serpent’s coins.

Yes, at some point, you can get competitive with maxed commons/uncommons/some scarces. But to be at the top of the pile? Coins, tier 2 hero cards, and maxed rares plzkthx.

This is why I generally avoid multiplayer. It’s just a very unpleasant experience playing against maxed rares + entire deck of tweaked coins.

And it seems there are replies to neither of these. Multiplayer is still beyond a chore, since level 28 on heroes is just a massive mountain to climb, and the difference in that second upgrade is massive when it means not only a cheaper card on the second tier upgrade, but if you run a second copy, well, the gold difference adds up QUICKLY. Also doesn’t help that most (I think only informant is uncommon?) are scarce/rare (lackey, daramek herd restocks, charlatan, apothecary), which not only means an additional 1 gold to play, but an additional 1 gold for every card you buy. Combined with epic coins, the economic advantage that players with decks with maxed rares/scarces/epic coins and those without basically makes multiplayer a “play only if you have to”, and by “if you have to”, I mean “if all three of your daily quests are multiplayer”.

It is that much of an unenjoyable experience from my POV. Justify it all you want about the devs having to make their money somewhere, it doesn’t change the experience on the end of anyone who isn’t on the top of the pyramid, which is predominantly negative.

More like: commons upgraded? Done.
Uncommons upgraded? A slog, but will get done eventually. Nearly 3/4ths of the way there on most of them (I usually upgrade the least upgraded one on opening them, not rushing any particular one).
Scarce? First upgrade: okay, feasible. Then I see the second tier of upgrades, with gold packs not unlocked. Ummmmm? Having that 2-gold goat poultice or rat ointment would be kinda nice.
Rares? First upgrade: maybe with some tourney winning luck. Second upgrade? Yeah, a 1-gold clever planning, 2 gold Boar Unguent/Aurochs Elixir would be nice. So would a 4-gold Boar Fetish (along with second copy being 5 gold instead of 6). But guess what? It probably AIN’T HAPPENING for anyone who doesn’t massively shell out.

As for the runes/rune pages in League? Yeah, that can be had within what? The first month or two for a few champions? And don’t forget the free rotations. You think if Faker/Doublelift/Bjergsen/NameYourFavoritePro made an alt that they couldn’t crush it to Diamond within a month after hitting level 30?

Sure, there may be not much of a difference going from say, a 14-gold to a 13-gold card. But from a 3 to 2 that restocks allies that cost 5 or 4? That’s pretty damn substantial. And why should new players then willingly want to play against that? Who benefits from that sort of “pay to win” scheme, if most players simply say “NOPENOPENOPE not becoming a whale, okay, had my fun, see ya”?

And there’s also a difference between “top level competitive” and “playing the same game”. EG if someone starts playing League of Legends, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, or whatever, they still have to learn the game. But what if a video game was “your opponent paid us $100. Therefore, he does double damage.”?

Isn’t the first tier of upgrades enough? Get a card (progress!), get four MORE copies of that card to upgrade it (progress!)

Isn’t that enough? Why institute the grueling 20-copy grind?

Edit: regarding the problem being the matchmaking system, how many players do you think there are on kong? Probably quite a few. Why would ANY of them go into multiplayer when there are people like you advocating that they should be at a disadvantage (perhaps a substantial one) before the first move is made? Any sane person would say “yeah, I’ll just avoid that unpleasant experience.”

People avoiding multiplayer → bad matchmaking → people avoiding multiplayer BECAUSE of bad matchmaking → cycle continues. Why is there a cycle in the first place? Because the reasonable thing to do in order to avoid negative experiences is not to play multiplayer BECAUSE of second-tier upgrades and coins.

How many decks run three copies of something (tier-2 upgrade, tier-1 upgrade, and original 2-more-gold card)? Very, very few. How much would the game change if the second-tier upgrade was removed and every card had its purchase cost lowered by 1? Very little. I suppose it’s too late to go back on the coin genie, however.

Refills? I run away from that in two seconds. I admit that this game is better about it than most. But that’s like saying “my shit smells less”. The pack unlocks are a nice way of monetizing IMO (EG spend $10, get gold packs, etc.). But the “buy a gazillion copies to reduce this card’s cost by 50%” aspect of things? Does it make too much of a difference for MOST rares, that are in the 6 gold+ category? Not too much. But clever planning? Aurochs elixir? Boar unguent? Yeah, that’s a pretty freaking massive difference.

It isn’t to say that the game is bad, but why should anyone go through the frustration of playing against something like a fully tweaked Mogesh deck with their 1-upgraded scarce next-to-no-coins deck? That’s just not a positive experience.

Players who spent more time playing should have the reward of more experience and knowing what to do in more situations, not “oh hey I grinded more rares, therefore I win!”

League of Legends seems to be extremely successful despite giving absolutely zero advantage to those that pay the big bucks aside from getting that one champ a little sooner. Once you get into the game, there’s absolutely no difference. But the difference between a 2 gold clever planning and 1 gold? The Daramek restock cards (all scarce/rare)? Might as well tell the non-paying players “well, there isn’t enough of a player base because the ones that spent the most (time or money) win the most because of pay-to-win, but please come and play this game so we can serve you to our heavy grinders/spenders!”

Really? That’s how people are encouraged to stay?

In League of Legends (for instance), you can have your “dream” champion fairly quickly. Buy the champ, buy a rune page, buy the runes, which will usually apply to many champs anyway. Here? Want a dream deck? That’ll be 24000 ingots for one card please!

I think the difference between a 3 gold stolen plans/seduce and a 2 gold one is massive. Same deal with clever planning, possibly cutpurse (not sure if that card is even useful), anything that restocks (daramek critter restocks, lackey, apothecary, charlatan). Also, a few procs of epic coins = same as taking an extra turn in terms of the resources (you only draw 3 a turn).

Also,

Originally posted by

Of course, if you have any suggestions on how to further improve balance without:

a) Screwing players that have invested time and money into getting their decks
b) Killing the devs’ income,

then we are all ears. Not joking, discussion about this is healthy.

Ever thought about running for public office? You seem to already have good practice on your doubletalk. The entire POINT of balance is that out-of-game grinding/money should be less of a factor (EG skins in League of Legends). I suppose at this point, it may be too late to say “well, we’ll refund everyone with second-tier upgrades with some ingots”, and then lower the gold cost of all cards by 1 (though I suppose the occasional deck uses tri-copy of a card), such that when the next card comes along, those players with the maxed rares have enough to automatically upgrade any rare they come across for the foreseeable future (the 4-copy upgrade).

Furthermore, I propose that players be allowed to purchase tourney tickets with silver, for say, 1500 silver. The only way they’d make that back is if they go 5+ wins anyway, but at the same time, they have a chance to actually play multiplayer instead of just grinding vs. the AI, because let’s face it—playing anything less than a 50/50 isn’t fun, and the quickest way to tip those scales is to allow for out-of-game grinding/paying to affect in-game balance.

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